CHAPTER XXIV

Austin Turold was wrong in supposing that his son had left Cornwall to fly
from England. Charles had stated his intention truly enough when he said
he was going to London to look for Sisily, but he did not disclose to his
father the real reason that led him there.

His visit to London was the pursuit of a definite plan. He was animated by
the hope that he knew where Sisily was likely to have sought shelter. Ever
since her disappearance this idea had lurked in his imagination and
occupied his secret thoughts.

It was the fruit of one of their last talks together--a memory they shared
in common. How well he remembered the occasion! They had been on the
cliffs looking down at the Gurnard's Head wallowing like a monster with a
broken back in the foam of a raging sea. It was the day after the death of
Sisily's mother, and Sisily had clung to him as if he were the only friend
she had in the world. She had spoken to him from the depth of an
overburdened soul impelled to confide in another, telling him of her
mother's sad life, unintentionally revealing something of the unhappiness
of her own. And she told him a strange thing about her mother's last
hours.

On her death-bed the unhappy woman must have had her fears concerning the
future of her daughter--belated uneasy premonitions arising after her
dying confession to the man supposed to be her husband, perhaps causing
her to doubt the wisdom of that revelation. That seemed plain enough to
Charles afterwards, though not apparent at the time Sisily had confided in
him, for she had died without giving the girl the slightest indication of
her life's secret, as if in some inscrutable hope that the tangle might be
made straight.

What she did do was to make a feeble effort to save her daughter from the
consequences of her own unhappy act, or at least to help her if those
results arose. She had whispered a name, the name of an old friend of her
girlhood who would befriend her child if ever she needed help. At her
urgent request Sisily had propped her up in bed while she wrote down the
address. Having performed this feat with infinite labour, she dropped back
on her pillow, clinging fast to the hand of the child she loved and whose
future she had blasted at the command of conscience.

Charles recalled how Sisily had taken that pathetic little scrap of paper
from her blouse, kissed it with quivering lips, and handed it to him in
silence. He had deciphered t